On Monday January 20, the 4th Grand Parade for Martin Luther King Day delighted thousands along both sides of San Jacinto Street from the Mid-town campus of HCC to Webster, with marching bands, dance troops, classic cars, Segways and horses, celebrating the remarkable achievements of the civil rights leader. The parade was sponsored by MLK Grande Parade.org. Simultaneously, downtown, a separate parade was organized by the Black Heritage Society. Throughout the weekend, and earlier that day, various events ceremonial breakfasts, a youth parade brought political, religious, and community leaders together in many venues and surrounding towns.

While there were no speeches, and few politicians in the San Jacinto parade, the event implicitly attested to the achievements that were for many only part of the dream Dr. King spoke of in 1963. We take it for granted that dozens of high schools in black communities can field a brigade of talented young musicians and dancers participating in ROTC programs with ample access to college.

A group of volunteer deputy voter registrars walked through the crowd asking everyone if they were registered to vote. The legacy of the Civil Rights Movement included the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which expanded access to the voting booth for people of color, and lead to the election of African Americans to local, state, and Congressional posts. While voter registration is always timely the fact that large numbers of African Americans are registered today, many motivated by the opportunity to vote for the first African American President a few years ago not to mention that thousands African Americans now hold public office at every level of government.

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Marc was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. His parents were divorced during his early childhood and his mother was remarried before he started school. His stepfather was a former United Nations lieutenant-colonel who spoke five European languages fluently. He taught Marc French at home and encouraged his language skills at school. With a myriad of international friends, contacts, and cross-cultural discussions at home, surrounded with world maps, atlases and globes, Marc was “world citizen” by the time he started Harvard College in 1970, majoring in pure mathematics.
Marc's interest in the arts and photography also dates from his childhood. He won an art critique essay contest in 1966, where the first prize was his first camera. During the summer of his sophomore year of college, he participated in a Christian Leadership Study tour of 17 nations. Two years while starting a Master's in Divinity at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, he met and married Judy Lokyin Chu, who was born in Hong Kong.. They returned to France in 1976 when Marc transferred to the Faculte Libre de Theologie Reformee at Aix-en-Provence. Two of his five children were born in France. Four of his seven grandchildren are dual French citizens. They returned after 4 years in France and one in Algeria when Marc enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1981.
Life in southern France included scores of opportunities to see works of Cezanne, Gauguin and van Gogh that were produced in the same region.
Marc's career has included pastoral ministry, mission work, teaching mathematics in French and English, practicing and teaching law in Massachusetts, teaching theology in French in Quebec, landscape photography, and photo-journalism in Houston.

Grouse Mountain in British Columbia, Canada, dates back to 1894, when a party of pioneer hikers made their first ascent up the slopes. After shooting a blue grouse, they named the rugged peak “Grouse Mountain.”